By: Kimberly Ramkhalawan
March 7, 2023
Over the next two weeks CARICOM will roll out its Secondary School Teacher Attachment as it activates the Teacher Component of the CARICOM Skilled Workers Programme, CSME, as part of the first segment of the programme
The programme which was delayed due to the pandemic, looks to place 19 CARICOM teachers on two-week attachments to secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Belize, Guyana and St Kitts and Nevis from March 6-17.
According to CARICOM Secretary General, Dr Carla Barnett, the one-week work attachments of border officials in different Member States, allows for the sharing of best practices in the administration of the Free Movement Regime for Skilled Nationals. She says under this programme, there are placement of CSME Focal Points in the private and public sectors, and Regional Institutions for one week, Focal Points she says will benefit from observing and sharing best practices in operations of the CSME in key areas.
Moreso, the two-week work attachments for secondary school teachers offers exposure to teaching CSME and wider CARICOM integration in the classrooms in other Member States, and how best practices can be replicated in their own schools. The attachments will also serve to better inform participants about the qualification framework for the free movement of skills, such as the levels of technical qualifications, skilled national certification, and categories of skills approved for free movement. Apart from the teachers benefiting, it also allows for one-week internships for the new cohort of CARICOM Youth Ambassadors (CYAs) at the CARICOM Secretariat to expose them to regional integration processes, so they can become better advocates for regional integration.
CYA Renee Atwell describes the programme as one the aims at inculcating a sense of regional identity and Caribbean pride, so they can contribute to sustainable development in the region through a realization of their own potential. Young people involved in the integration movement, will allow, for national and regional development fulfilling part of the Caribbean Youth action plan.
In thanking the participating teachers, she says the programme will expose, young people to diversity in learning.
The programme is as a result of some collaboration with the EU and its commitment to its CSME. Speaking at the event, Małgorzata Wasilewska, European Union Ambassador to Barbados says she anticipates several border control officers, teachers and youth ambassadors to benefit from these exchanges over the next year. She says likened the CSME to the European Union’s Single Market as one of its greatest achievements, which seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, people and local services. The EU Ambassador says since the EU single market, it has “fueled economic growth and made economic life easier for consumers and businesses and if the CSME follows suit, can do just the same for the Caribbean region”. With regard to the move toward the exchange in educators through movement in the region, she sees it as serving “as a catalyst in supporting the process, and urges for the success of the program to be measured not only through the number of persons mobilized, but the benefits of the mobility”. With this, Ambassador Wasilewska expressed hope that such exposure eventually translates “into easier implementation by CARICOM member states at the national level of CSME decisions that are required to advance the regional integration movement”.